30 Days in History

By: Sydney Sever

November makes me think of Thanksgiving and turkey, the colors orange and brown, and mounds of leaves scattered across my front lawn. But what else is the month of November known for? That’s the premise of 30 Days in History, to give you other important events and milestones that were accomplished or took place in the given month the article is published in or overlooks. So, without further adieu, let’s take a peek into history!

Consumer News

It all started with an idea.

On November 7th, 1929, the MoMA opened to the public in New York City. Late into the 1920s, Miss Lillie P. Bliss, Mrs. Cornelius J. Sullivan, and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, all patrons of the arts, decided there needed to be an institution that differed from former traditional artwork and supported modern works. In 1929, they created The Museum of Modern Art alongside A. Conger Goodyear, Paul Sachs, Frank Crowninshield, and Josephine Boardman Crane. The founding director, Alfred H. Barr Jr., had the intention of building this museum so visitors would understand and enjoy the collection of visual artistry. He believed that they would provide New York with “the greatest museum of modern art in the world.”

The public would answer with enthusiastic responses, leading the museum to move three times in the next ten years, each time transferring to a larger space. In 1939, they would settle into a building in midtown Manhattan that is still occupied now.

A gift of eight prints and one drawing would grow and expand to become 200,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, media and performance artworks, architectural models and drawings, design objects, and films. They also possess roughly two million film stills. The company additionally keeps a library open for student researchers and has the leading number of studying materials on modern art in the world with 320,000 books, periodicals, and extensive individual files on over 90,000 artists. The interior contains a routine of modern and contemporary exhibits touching on multiple subjects, mediums, time periods, and developments in the visual arts.

In 2006, MoMA completed a project that doubled its square footage and designed a new facility featuring more classrooms, auditoriums, and library space. This new museum opened on the 20th of November, 2004, and the Cullman Building in November of 2006. In place of the renovation, they removed themselves from their Manhattan location on 53 Street on May 21, 2002, and opened MoMA QNS in Long Island City, Queens, in late June of the same year. In September of two years later, the MoMA QNS was closed to prepare for the reopening in Manhattan.

Every year, tourists flock to one of MoMA’s warehouses to witness and embrace beautiful art.

Pop Culture

It is November 22nd, 1995. This is the day that the first Toy Story is released by Pixar Studios. A childhood favorite of mine, the story centers around a toy cowboy, Woody, and his friends. When Andy, the owner of the toys, receives a spaceman figure, known as Buzz Lightyear, for his birthday, jealousy strikes, and the two clash. Friendship must be formed, even though it will take some time.

Many prominent voices led this production, starting with Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz.

The film will produce a sequel on November 13, 1999. Eleven years later, on June 18, the third movie will add to the series, and nine years after that, the fourth. The original movie would be nominated for four Oscars and the director and co-writer, John Lasseter, was recognized with a Special Achievement Award.

Toy Story was a big piece in shaping future films like it due to the fact that it was entirely curated on a computer. The production made history as the very first 3D animated film. Technology in movie-making would be nudged to life after the release of Toy Story and make the movies we watch now so much more technically advanced!

Happy Birthday!

Georgia O’Keeffe celebrated her birthday on every 15th day in November, from 1887 to 1986. Georgia is well known as a significant artist for the 20th century and respected for her contributions to modern artwork.

Georgia was the second of seven children and spent her childhood on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. After graduating from high school, she was determined to become an artist. To achieve her dreams, Georgia studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. There, she was taught techniques following traditional painting styles. Four years later, her perspective was changed after learning of Arthur Wesley Dow’s revolutionary ideas, offering an alternative to the past. She then experimented for two years with abstraction while teaching art in West Texas.

She would mail these drawings to a friend who lived in New York City. The friend showed them to Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer, photographer, and Georgia’s future husband. He started to exhibit her work in 1916. By the time a few years had passed, popularity in her pieces had grown and she became recognized as one of America’s most important and successful artists. Georgia became known for her paintings of New York skyscrapers and flowers.

Summer of 1929, Georgia made her first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The strong difference between her former subjects and the cultures of this region inspired change in her work. After spending two decades in New Mexico, she made it her home in 1949. This was three years after the death of her husband. Georgia would begin traveling internationally in the 1950s, documenting the places she visited through sketches as she went.

Around the age of seventy-three, she found a new interest - aerial views of the sky and the clouds that filled it. In 1972, Georgia would notice macular degeneration and failing vision but would continue painting with assistance.

Then, on March 6, 1986, she died at the age of 98 in Santa Fe. She is still remembered in America now.

Paradoxes Made Plain

By: Ben L.

This month's paradox is called the “Pinocchio Paradox”. Imagine this, Pinocchio the wooden boy from the Disney 1940’s film “Pinocchio” tells you “my nose grows now”… but does it? Pinocchio’s nose only grows when he tells a lie but since he just told a lie it does. But wait you might think, it just grew, so he’s not telling a lie, so why is his nose growing? This makes an infinite loop of it having the possibility to grow, but also a reason not to. The answer to this paradox is this.

Quickly think to yourself what the definition of lying is, the word lying and/or lie means to tell someone an unfactual statement meaning to. If someone were to tell you 2+2=22, but they truthfully thought that’s what the answer was. Do you think that would be lying? It depends on the backstory, it could just mean they were lied to by someone else, or they are just wrong and don’t know. So the conclusion is that Pinocchio's nose would or wouldn’t grow only looping once depending on the backstory.

Next month's article will be about the omnipotence paradox, you can either try to guess what this paradox is by just plain guessing what it means or try by searching what omnipotence means. You could also look up what it means to have an easier time wrapping your head around it.